The Deep End
by shinigami nanoda
Summary: Imagine only walking on tiles that are diagonal from each other. Of always putting your right foot on the fifth step no matter what. Of only stepping on the ferns on the floral rug.
1. Imagine

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Newsies. Surprised?

**  
The Deep End**

Imagine walking down the hall at night and seeing the shadow of your legs. Now imagine that your eyes are glued to the floor because you're afraid that if you look back at them there might be more than just your shadow. Mirrors are exactly the same; you're afraid to look in them because you might see someone else's face looking back over your shoulder.

Imagine, if you will, that you don't let your feet stick off the edge of the bed and you don't stand too close to counters because you're afraid the next thing you'll feel is someone's hands grabbing your ankles.

Imagine only walking on tiles that are diagonal from each other. Of always putting your right foot on the fifth step no matter what. Of only stepping on the ferns on the floral rug.

Imagine hearing two people talking in the kitchen when you know there are only two people in the house and you're the only one awake.

And now imagine that's the way you've lived the last 10 years of your life.

Now I'm not saying that it's anyone's fault and I'm not saying that I've had it rougher than anyone else. In fact, I've had a pretty good life, all things considered. The only thing unstable in my family was me. They were all supportive and really nice about it. But they blamed themselves and they shouldn't have.

It was my brother who got me this job, pushing papers at the local DAUC branch. DAUC is Defense Against Unnatural Creatures, but I don't really know what they do. I just mail things to who they need to get to. And they don't even get mad at me when I come in late on Thursdays and never come in on the 13th or 31st at all.

They say I'm doing better. I can't really tell, but I guess I believe them. I've stopped seeing as much, which they say is a good thing. And he doesn't talk to me anymore. They say that's good too. But I think it's just lonely.

But he isn't even real.

I think.

I think that's what I think.

It's what they tell I should think.

So I think that way.

I think.

It's like when I watch the stack of files in front of me. Sometimes they'll just be sitting there, like paper should. Other times they'll start rearranging themselves and I'm the only one who notices. They shuffle themselves around so that I can't find the one I'm looking for. And if anyone else tries to help they get themselves back in order so that no one believes me.

They're tricky, those files.

The pills they gave me are supposed to help. I guess they do. They say they do. But sometimes I just get the feeling I'm missing something. Kind of like if you went to bed and dreamt in color and woke up to a world of black and white. Just black and white and gray. Then out of the corner of your eye you think you see a splash of red or yellow. So you turn to look at it.

But it's just gray.

And black and white.

It's that kind of thinking that makes me twitchy. It makes me realize that the second hand of the clock down the hall isn't very steady. It speeds up sometimes and then it slows down. And time goes with it. It's a kind of feeling you get, the one where you just want to walk out the door, get on a bus and go where ever it takes you. But at the same time you're scared to move. Because there's something watching you that you know you should be able to see, but you can't. And it's just waiting, waiting for you to slip up.

That's how I felt when I left work today. Jumpy. I felt eyes on the back of my neck all the way home. I turned around and walked backwards for a while. But as soon as I turned back around I felt them again.

I tried telling myself that there wasn't anything there, just like they told me to. It didn't work though, because there was something there. I knew it. I couldn't very well lie to myself and say something wasn't there when it was. But I tried.

I don't know what made me do it, maybe it was a combination of the eyes and the creaks of the floorboards, buttonight, when I was sitting at home on the sofa, I made the decision not to take my pills.

I went to bed.

Then I woke up and he was standing there. I didn't actually see him, I never have, but I knew he was there. And he was talking.

"So Race, I see you've decided to rejoin the living." He had a calm blue voice with shards of red and orange. I had missed it without even knowing I was missing it.

I tried to get up to walk over to him, but I was tied to the bed. I wasn't surprised. It was just like them to keep me tied up at night.

Before I could answer he was gone.

The room was warmer than it was before.

And the gray had hints of blue.

**  
AN: **This is an AU story (which should have been kind of obvious by now). I don't have much to say about it. But I like it. Of course, I have the added benefit of knowing where it's going.


	2. Thursday

**The Deep End**

The next morning I woke up to a different world. I mean, it was the same world, but it was different. Everything was clearer and sharper. I could see things without the fog that usually clings around the edges. Everything seemed more alive. More real.

More deadly.

And it was Thursday.

If you didn't already know, Thursday is the most dangerous day of the week. It's the day all the cops are out catching speeders and giving parking tickets. It's the day I saw a kid throwing rocks and a bird. It's the day I lost my blue pen, the day where the folders just won't stay still. It's the day my goldfish died. It's the day that everyone blows off and whishes were Friday.

And Thursday gets jealous.

Oh, does it ever get jealous. So it makes bad things happen to make people realize that they have to spend 24 hours with Thursday, and they can't do anything about it.

I walked to work, slowly, not stepping on any cracks. I took two steps to each section of the 237 sections of concrete. I took ten steps to cross each street. I was extra careful, but it was Thursday, so it wasn't good enough.

The twitchy feeling was there all day, getting stronger with each footstep in the hall outside my door. I couldn't stand it. My hands reached inside my jacket for the deck of cards I used to keep there. Seven times, and each time it pulled out nothing. They weren't there anymore.

They said that shuffling was a 'compulsion' I had. So they took my cards away to prove to me that nothing bad would happen and that my shuffling had nothing to do with the way things turned out.

They said I didn't have to shuffle.

But I do.

I mean, there isn't anyone else who's going to.

So I have to.

After that the room wouldn't stay the same size. It kept getting smaller and smaller until there was barely room for me to breathe. Then it would get so huge that I was stranded in the middle of it.

Suddenly everything snapped into focus.

The ticks from the clock down the hall were slow, but even. The papers stayed still. There were no footsteps outside my door.

The phone.

I didn't check the phone.

The thought hit me and everything started moving in and out again. That was the reason everything was worse than usual. That, and it was Thursday.

Their eyes hit me.

They started watching me again.

They knew something was up. I should have just stayed there, doing the same thing I do everyday.

But I had to go home.

I had to check.

I ran back home. I knew they were watching me, wondering what I was doing, but I couldn't help it. I had to get back. But they were confused, and as long as they were confused, I was safe.

Finally I was there. I picked up the phone three times and each time I put it down I heard the little beep it made when it was connected to the charger. It might have been fine before I left. But there was no way of knowing.

I walked into the bathroom to wash my hands, and it was there I made my biggest mistake. As I reached towards the light switch I looked up, straight at the mirror.

I looked at the mirror in the dark.

I shut my eyes as soon as I realized what I had done, but it was too late. There was someone's face looking over my shoulder.

And it wasn't his.

I turned slowly to look behind me, but no one was there. The man was still in the mirror; he hadn't come in. But it wasn't because I hadn't invited him.

I couldn't explain why I was so terrified. I tried. I really did. There was something in his eyes. Something that let me know that he would remember me. And something that let me know that was exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

Cruel.

His eyes were cruel.

Not take the last of the coffee and not make a new pot cruel or mowing over your neighbors flowers because you were mad at them cruel. Not even puppy kicking cruel. He was far beyond that.

And it scared me.

I slid down the wall and pulled my knees up to my chest. I had looked at him. He looked at me. And I couldn't figure out anything else to do but hide.

My brother came by later to make sure I was okay. He comes by every Thursday because he thinks I'm scared of them.

I'm not. And even if I used to be, there's someone who scares me more.

And he just met me.

**AN: **It's been a while and I feel a little guilty for letting time get away from me like that. I meant to update sooner, but it just didn't happen. However, now that summer is here and I have months free from almost all other responsibilities, I will update more often.

**Madison Square**- I'm glad you like it. The main character is actually Race…and I wouldn't say he's schitzophrenic, but…actually I can't tell you. But you'll find out soon.

**time is a waste of life**- Thanks and I will keep writing it. I promise.

**LotusStar**- Well, it's not exactly soon, but there is more. And there'll be more soon. And this time I mean it.

**Chaos Adame**- Thanks for the review and I hope you keep reading!


	3. Death

**The Deep End**

I woke up tangled in my sheets. My heart was pounding. I was sweating. I could barely breathe.

I was terrified.

He was here. In my house. In my room. Underneath my bed.

He was waiting.

I stayed perfectly still, making sure both my feet were under the covers. I shut my eyes and tried to convince myself I was just imagining things. It was what they told me to do.

It never really worked.

I opened my eyes to look at the clock.

It was midnight.

I held my breath. The seconds ticked on silently.

He could've had me right then. It was the right time for it. He had a whole minute to do whatever he wanted. I stayed where I was, tense, waiting for something to happen.

The minute changed and it was no longer midnight. He hadn't done anything. And now it was too late for him to try.

I began to drift back to sleep. I had survived. He couldn't get me now.

Just as I had allowed that thought to comfort me, his hand was wrapped around my ankle. His cold bony fingers dug into my skin, pulling me down.

Down.

Through the mattress.

He wasn't allowed. He was breaking the rules. He was too late. I was safe. I had been sure of it.

He couldn't do anything.

But he did anyway.

I slid through the cotton sheets, through the bed frame, and finally through the floor.

Down.

I tried to fight. I did. But I couldn't get a hold on anything. Everything I tried to touch just passed through my hand.

Like it wasn't even there.

The world shrunk.

The only thing that existed was his fingernails biting into my ankle.

He pulled me down, deeper and deeper, until there was nothing.

Dark.

It was dark.

But there was fire.

All around me, burning. I could feel it, but I couldn't see it. The flames licked around my arms and legs. My skin started to blister.

Hotter and hotter.

I smelled my hair burning. My fingernails curled and burned away. I felt my skin melt off my bones. I gagged, which only let the flames in deeper. They were inside me, eating away.

I couldn't move, I couldn't do anything but scream. But no sound came out. I could only imagine what I would have sounded like, my throat burned and blistered, my lungs hanging in tatters inside my chest.

Pain and fear were equally unbearable. But somehow, I was still alive.

I should've been dead.

Eventually my mind went blank. It shut itself down.

Static, then nothing.

I stayed like that for a long time, without even the beating of my heart to keep me company.

Maybe I was dead.

Maybe this was all there was.

Nothing.

Nothing except dark and silence.

But something distracted me, something wasn't quite right. Before I had felt nothing, but now there was something.

That thought jumped around the corners of my mind, but I couldn't pin it down.

I didn't want to. I was tired.

I was dead.

No.

No I wasn't.

Dead.

No.

No, you weren't supposed to feel things when you were dead.

But I did.

It felt cold, cold as death, so cold that it almost felt like it was burning.

But it wasn't.

My ankle.

He was still holding it. His clammy palm pressed against me, in a strange counterpoint to the absence of feeling everywhere else.

That thought was enough.

"Get me out of here." My mouth refused to form the words. Not that it surprised me. There was nothing left of it except blackened bone. My tongue was gone, and all that remained of my lips were scraps of skin hanging off my teeth.

But someone must have heard me because there was an answer.

"All you had to do was ask."

* * *

**AN: **I'm back from Ellensberg (I was there for college stuff) and I've finished The Half Blood Prince. That got real life out of the way, so I updated.

I hope this story isn't getting too confusing. There will be explanation soon. Very soon. I promise.

**madmbutterfly713**- I'm glad you like it! And Race might not be as crazy as you think. Maybe.

**Liams Kitten**- Reading at midnight isn't probably the best idea, but I'm glad you read it. I hope it isn't too confusing.

**entropic order**- I'm really glad you like it. You're review made me really happy and also served to inflate my ego (which probably didn't need it). Thank you!


	4. Life

**The Deep End**

I felt a hand in mine. A warm, living hand, the complete opposite of the hand that was on my ankle.

"You have to let him go. That's the rule and even you can't break it."

Slowly I felt the hand on my ankle let go, releasing me only because it had no other choice. It no longer held me down and I felt myself beginning to drift. Up and up, higher and higher, until the only thing keeping me from floating away was his hand in mine.

"Do you really want to go back there?"

I didn't answer because I didn't know what he meant. He seemed to take my silence as an agreement and started leading me.

But he led me down.

Down through my ashes, through the embers of the fire I had passed through earlier. The heat seeped away and it grew colder and colder. Ice swirled in flurries around us, yet we were untouched.

Untouched by the ice itself, but the cold ate into my bones. I couldn't move. My joints were frozen, unable to bend.

But his hand was still warm.

We went down and down until we seemed to be going up.

It began to grow warmer. It happened so slowly that I couldn't tell when it started, but slowly my bones began to thaw. A warm breeze blew around us. I felt air against the face that I thought was gone. I felt my hair move in the wind. I felt my skin stretch over my bent knuckles where I gripped his hand.

The darkness that had surrounded me started to give way. Light, only noticeable because of the total darkness, started to appear. Dim streaks rippled in and out, as if we were surrounded by a curtain that had started to wear through. It grew brighter and brighter and I could see my arm stretching up to meet his hand. I could see his hand. I could see him.

Then I noticed there were things around us, but we were moving so fast I could barely see it before it was gone.

We slowed down, no longer floating through the air. We were on a dusty road, and even though I would have followed him anyway he kept my hand in his.

I whipped my head around, trying to take in everything, but I could only catch snatches of things at first. A splash of brown that turned into the wall of a building. Yellow words on a sign outside a shop. Red flowers on a windowsill. But slowly, slower than the slowest sunrise, I started to see everything. The world around me, people going back and forth like well-oiled gears. Voices hung in the air, coloring the sky the deepest shade of blue I'd ever seen.

I didn't notice he had stopped until my arm, still attached to his, stretched out behind me and pulled me back. I turned to face him, only to find him staring at me. Or through me.

I'd never seen him before, but I felt like I had. He looked exactly the way he sounded. On the shorter side, with piercing eyes drifting somewhere between blue and gray. Light brown hair and a key hanging around his neck. Blue with some hard spots of red. That's what he was.

I don't know how long we stood there. It could have been for a few seconds or hours. But it didn't matter. I wasn't scared. I, who had spent all my life that I could remember being terrified, was not afraid.

And I didn't know why.

When he saw me looking at him, his eyes returned to my face, no longer looking inside me. He gave a little smile, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and asked if I was feeling better.

I said I was, thanks.

* * *

**AN:** I'd just like to thank you all for reading and being patient with my slowness. But I really want to get things right. And if I mess something up here, then the rest of the story won't make sense. This chapter was really hard to write andthere are still parts I don't like, but I couldn't figure out how to make it so I did...so I updated anyway.

**madmbutterfly713- **I know you think he's crazy, but I'm pretty sure I'll be calling you Bob pretty soon.

**hobbit1400-** It's not exactly soon…but better late than never, right?

**Silky Conlon- **Yes, the main character is Race, but that's only been mention once. Thanks for reviewing!

**Pussycat- **Thank you for reading it and I'm glad you like it.

**Liams Kitten- **I'm glad you like it, despite it's confusing-ness. I promise almost everything will get explained eventually. It's not exactly soon, but I hope you're still happy.

**Corpus Conlon- **Thanks for reading and I hope it isn't too confusing. It makes sense to me, but I'm the one writing it, so I'm not the best judge.

**christianrockstar- **Thank you! I'm glad you like it.

**Kid Blink's Dreamer**- Thanks! Updatedness is goodness…even if I'm really slow about it. 


	5. Reflection

**The Deep End**

I followed him up worn stone stairs, past the rusted iron railings, and into the brick building that loomed over us. It was an unsteady mix of the very old and the very new. The bricks looked as if they had been laid yesterday, but they were mixed in with stone that had seen the beginning of the world. None of the windows matched, which was quite an accomplishment because there were no less than fifteen on the front of the house. Gables and awnings stuck out at odd angles. The three chimneys tilted and I wondered how they were still standing.

It was the doors that took the cake though. They were made of planks of wood, each a little less than a foot wide, held together with iron bolts. The two bronze knockers were each lions heads, their faces frozen, one into a horrible grimace, the other into a contented yawn.

His knucklesrapped lightly at the door on the right and it swung open.

"Remember, all you have to do is knock."

Inside there was a hall that stretched on forever. The floor was covered with a single rug and there were portraits of all sizes and quality covering the walls. Doors of all shapes and sizes led offon either side. They were all closed.

I felt a faint breeze, first from behind me, then switching direction. It was like the house was breathing. A deep, steady breathing.

Safe.

No.

I couldn't be.

I followed him down the hall, trying to count my steps. But something wasn't letting me. A faint buzzing inside my skull would catch me at it and then it would be gone. So I started over.

Sixteen.

Seventeen.

Static.

Nine.

Ten.

Elev-

Satic.

Th-

Static.

I tried again and again, but it only caught on sooner and sooner. My heart started pounding in my chest. I could feel the blood rushing through my veins, draining from my face to puddle in my stomach.

I started shaking.

I folded my arms, trying to stop the trembling, but it only made it worse.

I had to stop walking. My legs shivered from a cold that only they could feel. My breath caught in my throat.

He turned and looked at me.

I tried to tell him what was wrong, but words wouldn't come out. My tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth. It was dry. My lips cracked, letting a rattle of air out instead of words.

By I didn't need to tell him. He already knew.

"He can't get you here. No one can, unless you let them. And I'm here to make sure you don't."

I pried my fingers off my arms, not even noticing the blood I drew with my fingernails. I licked my lips, or at least tried to; my tongue was still made of sandpaper.

"You're safe."

He said what the house had been trying to tell me earlier. But I couldn't believe it.

"It will take time."

I couldn't tell if that last thing I heard was him or the house. Or both.

Finally we stopped walking.

At the end of the hallway there was a mirror. I stretched from the ceiling to the floor. There was no frame around it, just mirror from wall to wall. The hallway inside it stretched on and on.

I was half afraid to look at it. And I don't even know why.

I screwed up my courage, or what little of it there was, took a deep breath, and looked at the mirror.

I shouldn't have.

I wasn't there.

He was.

He was standing with a slight smile on his lips, his hand rising to rest on my shoulder.

My shoulder that wasn't there.

I tried to ask, but my lungs wouldn't give me enough air to finish a word.

"I'll explain tomorrow." His eyes in the mirror met mine. "Sometimes it's better to let things wait for the morning."

He led me through the door on our right into a bedroom.

A fire burned cheerfully in the grate, casting an orange glow over all the room. A deep brown wooden bed dominated the room, heaped with blankets and pillows. All the fabrics were slightly faded, more comfortable for their wear. There was a small table next to the head of the bed with a lamp, some books, a pitcher of water, and a glass.

He offered me a change of clothes, blue and white striped pajamas. I sank into the bed, my eyes closing in spite of the answers I didn't have.

That night I slept.

I slept, but I didn't dream.

* * *

**AN: **So, after nearly 6 months later I have another chapter. I think I've got this whole school/writing thing figured out now. At least until juries. Real life has thrown me for a couple loops in the past while, but I'm pretty good now. And, with any luck, I'll get back on updating in a timely manner.

**Kid Blink's Dreamer-** Thanks and I'm glad you like it!

**Liams Kitten- **It is Spot. And I hope it keeps kind of making sense and thank you for reading!

**Silky Conlon- **It's not even close to the end yet. It's just beginning. And I hope her dad stays safe.

**madmbutterfly713- **I can work with Ethel… 3. Thanks for reading!

**DorkyColaGeek730- **Thank you! I'm sorry you had to wait so long for this chapter…

**christianrockstar-** That's probably one of the best compliments I've ever gotten. Thank you!

**Corpus Conlon-** I haven't read anything by Alex Garland, but I think I will. The style I was trying to get for this story was a Neil Gaiman meets Charles de Lint meets the Gun Seller…but I'm not too sure how that worked.


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